Equasy


Equasy is a term invented by Professor David Nutt in 2008 to describe the syndrom of addiction to equitation, or "equine addiction syndrome". The word derives from equestrianism. Equasy has become a concept popularly used when discussing drug harmfulness and drug policies.
Equasy was used as a fictional drug in a didactical and pedagogical way to explaining the differences of criteria taken into account for the classification of psychoactive substances for matters of policy control, as 100 facilities of horse-related deaths were reported, against 30 deaths linked to ecstasy.
Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Nutt said that the point was "to get people to understand that drug harm can be equal to harms in other parts of life".
In February 2009, Nutt was criticised by the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith for stating in the paper that the drug ecstasy was statistically no more dangerous than an addiction to horse-riding. Following the release of the article in the Journal of Psychopharmacology Nutt was dismissed from his position of chairperson at the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs by Home Secretary Alan Johnson.
In June 2012, Nutt had the opportunity to explain in front of the UK Home Affairs Committee that "it was not an arbitrary choice of horse-riding as a comparator, it came from a patient I had seen who had suffered irreversible brain damage from falling off her horse, and she came to me for treatment it got me thinking, How dangerous is horse-riding? I discovered, remarkably, that it was considerably more dangerous than I had thought. Then I thought that it was an interesting comparison because it is something that people do-young people do-and it is popular but dangerous. It is probably addictive as well; many riders find it difficult not to ride. I thought it would be an interesting experiment to compare this pseudo-drug, equasy, which a lot of people think is a drug now."